I’m a terrible fantasy baseball player.
How bad could I be? Well, I’ve botched draft after draft, messed up FAAB in ways that sunk pretty good teams, and even had trades I thought were good value rejected by commissioners for being collusion. Unsurprisingly, these are my fantasy fears -- the things I dread because I think I’ll mess them up.
Point of fact, I’ve been playing in around two to three leagues for six years now and never had a top half finish until last year. That was when I joined a dynasty league and relied on some excellent pieces by our writers to drag my team out of the gutter-- but now I’ve got a taste for more.
That’s where The Fantasy Dojo article series comes in.
I’ve drafted one of the best fantasy players out there into being my fantasy consigliere: Eddy Almaguer, the top ranked TGFBI player according to our own Smada’s calculations. He’ll help guide me through a league full of savvy Prospects Live readers and writers, recruited from our Discord Find A League channel (you should join!). Along the way, I’ll share everything I’ve learned in this column so that we can all get better together.
So here are the ground rules:
First, it’s a 20-team league that mirrors TGFBI rules to the best it can with a $20 buy-in. This is snake redraft territory, with a $1000 FAAB budget, and unlike TGFBI, trades are allowed so I can get some practice in.
Second, Eddy is not my co-manager. I could have him make every decision and probably accomplish my goals, but then I wouldn’t have learned anything. So Eddy, apart from the draft, is there for either process-related questions, or once a week advice. Even during the draft, Eddy is only allowed to narrow down my decisions, and he’ll have to do so according to whatever philosophy I set.
If I say after talking with him I want to chase average early, when he gives me three players to choose from they’ll have to be in service of that goal.
In sum, I can ask Eddy questions like: How do you decide which FAAB players are worth what amount? I can ask Eddy questions once a week like: Are there any FAAB worthy players this week? I can’t ask Eddy: Who should I bid on in FAAB this week?
I desperately want to get better at fantasy. I’m sure a lot of you do too, even if it’s from perennial top 5 to winning one this year. To hold myself accountable, here are my goals:
I want to finish top three in this league. If I finish bottom half again, I’ve failed. Anywhere in between is better than I’ve ever done, but worse than I should be doing with consigliere Eddy on my side.
I’ll also rate myself on each part of management -- pre-season and in-season -- at the end of the season to see if I’ve gotten better.
The next article will be all about my dive into the draft. We’ve already had the KDS draw (definitely add this to your league, it’s another fun aspect) so here’s my draft slot as a little teaser: 12. See you next week, and welcome to the Dojo.